The curious helpless feeling that had been hers so often since Pollyanna's arrival, had her now fast in its grip.
"Of course I knew," hurried on Pollyanna, gratefully, "that you wouldn't let a dear little lonesome kitty go hunting for a home when you'd just taken ME in; and I said so to Mrs.Ford when she asked if you'd let me keep it.

Why, I had the Ladies' Aid, you know, and kitty didn't have anybody.

I knew you'd feel that way," she nodded happily, as she ran from the room.
"But, Pollyanna, Pollyanna," remonstrated Miss Polly.

"I don't--" But Pollyanna was already halfway to the kitchen, calling: "Nancy, Nancy, just see this dear little kitty that Aunt Polly is going to bring up along with me!" And Aunt Polly, in the sitting room--who abhorred cats--fell back in her chair with a gasp of dismay, powerless to remonstrate.
The next day it was a dog, even dirtier and more forlorn, perhaps, than was the kitten; and again Miss Polly, to her dumfounded amazement, found herself figuring as a kind protector and an angel of mercy--a role that Pollyanna so unhesitatingly thrust upon her as a matter of course, that the woman--who abhorred dogs even more than she did cats, if possible--found herself as before, powerless to remonstrate.
When, in less than a week, however, Pollyanna brought home a small, ragged boy, and confidently claimed the same protection for him, Miss Polly did have something to say.

It happened after this wise.
On a pleasant Thursday morning Pollyanna had been taking calf's-foot jelly again to Mrs.Snow.